I was reluctant to put something glowing like an ember in my mouth. I offered it to Grosbeak who gobbled it up and then hissed, steam screaming out of his ears.
“Yes,” he panted, face turning cherry red. “It is a star. Tastes just like one.”
“Would that have happened to me if I’d eaten it?” I asked in horror.
“Probably worse,” Sparrow said dryly. “Because it just fell through his neck. It would have passed into your digestive system.”
“I think I’ll avoid your food recommendations,” I said sourly as Coppertomb dragged me onward. He paid our interaction no mind, but I noticed he refused to focus his eyes anywhere that the small stars twinkled as if their presence bothered him.
She shivers and my skin alights, butterfly tissue, burning bright,Bluebeard muttered in my mind. It worried me that he’d moved to verse. He sounded delirious.
A tiny blue bird landed on his cloaked head and began to trill.
Can you help me find a fast way to flee your enemy?I whispered to him with my mind, glancing at his face beside me. He frowned but did not reply.
“Why is the Wittenhame suddenly falling to pieces?” I hissed and Sparrow and Grossbeak met each other’s gaze, eyes wide, lips tightly closed as if they didn’t want to tell me.
“Were I you, I’d keep such observations to myself,” Grosbeak murmured eventually.
“Why?” I pressed. “Is it not obvious to everyone?”
He made a hmm sound and then Coppertomb leaned in close, “I, also, would not make observations on the state of the Wittenhame were I you, mortal woman. The Wittenhame is mine now as I am her king. Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh.”
I paused.
“Then speak to my riddle, Bramble King,” I said boldly. “Was not the Wittenhame whole and merry, fat and flourishing under the former Bramble King.”
“It began to fade as he did. Everyone could sense it,” Grosbeak replied hurriedly, as if trying to head me off. “Why think you he sought a successor?”
But Coppertomb said nothing, merely setting his jaw and forcing me forward. We were coming toward where the ruins of the ice castle formed a platform of sorts that was ringed with dark-garbed Wittenbrand I assumed were his guards. They were mounted on large black lizards with blunt noses and glittering eyes.
“Speak further to my riddle, Bramble King,” I pressed. “Are you not hale as a young warrior and strong as a buck in season? Are you not healthy as a prize bull and more clever besides?”
He stopped, suddenly, turning me to look in his face and his black eyes held a look of death and I remembered, in that moment, that among his kind he was very young and that young men have easily bruised pride.
“You flatter me,” he murmured.
“And yet, I speak only the truth,” I said as my severed head advisors gasped and then pinned their lips tightly together as if afraid he would punish them for what I said.
“What are you saying?” he asked in a low voice just for me, and his face drew very close to mine.
“Victor but not yet won,” I murmured but I did not mean the man in front of me, because if the Wittenhame echoed the life of its ruler and Coppertomb was hale and hearty, what did it say that the sky was falling and the laws of the place dissolving? Could it be that he was not the ruler of this place at all?
Could it be that another ruled? One who faded as I clung to his hand.
“Keep your poison words in your swollen mouth, daughter of dust,” he hissed, and then he dragged me up on the platform surrounded by his lizard-riding guards and I swallowed down a burst of horror as something squished under my foot.
Don’t look down, Izolda. Don’t look down.
“I do love the pomp you’ve managed, Bramble King,” Grosbeak said in a honeyed way that made me sneer. He was ever the bootlick.
Coppertomb ignored him, but he tilted his chin up as an announcement was made.
“Gather before your King!” the crier called at the same moment and there was the sound of blaring horns, that were half-trumpet and half-scream, and then the rat pyramid dissolved, and the crier fell from the sky, and there was another ragged cheer as they pressed in toward the platform. Bare bone woven into breastplate stood side by side with bronze scale and boiled leather painted to look like a creature of flame. A spirit of festivity surrounded the martial crowd.
“In a moment, I will address my people,” Coppertomb said, leaning over now to look me in the eye. “But first I will deal with you. Right now, before them, so they may witness how those who defy me are humbled. You have stuck in my craw as your pole stuck in the mouth of the Hound and I will have you out one way or another.”
He paused and then his hand moved lightning fast and he yanked the silver key from around my neck, snapping the chain and pocketing it.
